Page 93 of The Silent Patient

“What about?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

She lapsed into silence.

I waited as long as I could bear before prompting her, “Let’s keep going. You were in the kitchen. How were you feeling?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember feeling anything at all.”

I nodded. “That’s not uncommon in these situations. It’s not just a case of flight-or-fight responses. There’s a third, equally common response when we’re under attack—we freeze.”

“I didn’t freeze.”

“No?”

“No.” She shot me a fierce look. “I was preparing myself. I was getting ready… ready to fight. Ready to—kill him.”

“I see. And how did you intend to do that?”

“Gabriel’s gun. I knew I had to get to the gun.”

“It was in the kitchen? You had put it there? That’s what you wrote in the diary.”

Alicia nodded. “Yes, in the cupboard by the window.” She inhaled deeply and blew out a long line of smoke. “I told him I needed some water. I went to get a glass. I walked across the kitchen—it took forever to walk a few feet. Step by step, I reached the cupboard. My hand was shaking.… I opened it.…”

“And?”

“The cupboard was empty. The gun was gone. And then I heard him say, ‘The glasses are in the cupboard to your right.’ I turned around, and the gun was there—in his hand. He was pointing it at me, and laughing.”

“And then?”

“Then?”

“What were you thinking?”

“That it had been my last chance to escape, and now—now he was going to kill me.”

“You believed he was going to kill you?”

“I knew he was.”

“But then why did he delay? Why not do it as soon as he broke into the house?”

Alicia didn’t answer. I glanced at her. To my surprise, a smile was on her lips.

“When I was young, Aunt Lydia had a kitten. A tabby cat. I didn’t like her much. She was wild, and she’d go for me sometimes with her claws. She was unkind—and cruel.”

“Don’t animals act out of instinct? Can they be cruel?”

Alicia looked at me intently. “They can be cruel. She was. She would bring in things from the field—mice or little birds she’d caught. And they were always half-alive. Wounded, but alive. She’d keep them like that and play with them.”

“I see. It sounds like you’re saying you were this man’s prey? That he was playing some kind of sadistic game with you. Is that right?”

Alicia dropped the end of her cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “Give me another one.”

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